The Destroyer of Time
by Hane no Zaia
Summary: Following the Ark incident, Allen is taken and awakens as a Noah. But in the end, will he choose his fate as the successor of the 14th or will he choose his fate as the Destroyer of Time? And who is this other guy? (Continued in Black Joker, Red Joker.)
1. The Beginning of an End

_Of all things I could possibly have imagined, I had not expected to be forced to rewrite this once again. *sigh* I'm going to do this right this time around, I need to do this right this time around… because I'd seriously hate it if I received a memo telling me to get back here and edit this a third time. Then again, they do say the third time's the charm, don't they?_

_Anyhow, one major change of this is that I've done my best to stick to Allen's PoW for as much as possible, because too many PoW doesn't synch well with my current style of writing and current style of storytelling. I have kept parts of the old story, but reworked other bits and removed ones which have been deemed either too arbitrary or just too redundant to make the cut._

_Disclaimer: I obviously don't own D. Gray – Man. _

_- _o0o -

**The Beginning of an End**

_- _o0o -

He coughed violently a couple of times, using his hands to muffle the sounds. There was something stuck in his throat, blocking his airways. He spat it out into his hand. Blood. He coughed again, trying to catch his breath, failing. His breathing sounded almost watery, yet awfully shallow at the same time.

_Am I… going to die like this?_

Night after night in the sickbay, spent like this. Slowly, he was suffocating, and it was not only in a purely physical sense.

Eyes. Everyone was staring. Always.

"Allen? What's the matter?"

A single green eye peered worriedly at him in the darkness.

He coughed again, attempting to collect himself enough to formulate an answer. "Wrong pipe," he wheezed out.

A grin swiftly replaced the worried look as Lavi sniggered. "You're such a glutton, Sprout."

He made sure to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand before he turned, returning the grin. It was forced, but it was necessary; they would worry even more about him if he didn't, and he couldn't bear much more scrutiny. _I'm alright_, he mentally repeated, wishing he himself would be able to believe in it. _I'm alright…_

_- _o0o -

He was burning up, burning up from the inside and out, his life burning away at an accelerating rate. He felt like he was dying, and he probably was, somehow. A nearly constant fever plagued him, bringing him closer to a state of delirium. He was slipping, and he could feel it. His body was rejecting something, being rejected by something. Was it the Innocence? Was he turning into a Fallen One?

_I don't… want to die…_

Delirious, he found himself imagining, night after night, that there was a masked man standing at his bedside. His rational mind rejected the notion, of course, putting it off as a dream or as a hallucination called forth by his tired and restless mind.

A smile flashed by in the darkness, but it was all a dream anyway so it didn't matter.

"_Who…?"_

His lips were dry, and his throat hurt badly when speaking. He half-expected that the man would fade away upon being addressed, and as such he was moderately surprised when the figure apparently decided to stay around, watching him in silence. Darkness was closing in on him where he lay, searing darkness which would erase him from the world, but suddenly he was cool again, cool and at peace.

His eyes fluttered open slightly, taking in the blurred shape of his silent observer. A cold hand rested on his forehead, stroking it almost tenderly. He was slipping again, though he fought against sleep as it crept up on him, but he was fighting in vain. The cold hand slipped from his forehead, but it was soon replaced by a pair of lips which were just as cold.

"It's alright…" someone whispered. "It'll be alright…"

Allen didn't believe them.

_- _o0o -

Time and time again, he found himself sitting at the white piano in the Ark with virtually no recollection of how he got there in the first place, and no idea as to how he had made it past the motherly Matron, who guarded them all like a bloodhound of some sort, refusing to let anyone who did not have a clean bill of health out of her place of dwelling.

Time and time again, he found himself playing and playing and playing, until he was not all too sure as to where he was and what he was doing anymore. It didn't matter, because playing the instrument proved to be soothing in some ways, putting his mind to rest about a lot of things.

_- _o0o -

_"You're burning up. Why are you so bloody weak?"_

A snort. What was Kanda doing in there?

_"Why are you so bloody concerned? Leave me alone."_

Concern. Why was he concerned?

_- _o0o -

He was seeing things again, a grinning shadow in the mirror, waiting for him, waiting to take over. A sickening feeling overcame him, and his world swayed dangerously.

Hands grabbed onto him, slinging him over someone's shoulder. He struggled. "What the Hell are you doing, BaKanda?"

He continued to struggle, but nothing came of it so he gave up, falling limp. "Let me down, Kanda. Let me down or else I'll barf all over your uniform."

Dizziness nearly overcame him for a moment, and he almost missed the instance where he was put back onto his feet for a brief moment, only to be swept back up again in the next. "What the fuck's wrong with you? I can walk on my own, you dumbass."

A snort. "Doubtfully."

"Hey, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

A scoff. "I seriously doubt that."

"And I don't give an ass as to what you think, so just let me down or else I'll..."

The world tilted dangerously again. His head hurt, and it hurt so badly he felt like it was going to burst open on him. "I'll..."

"Are you alright?" Kanda asked.

"Yeah, just bloody fabulous. Now let me down or I'll..."

Another wave of pain shot through his head. "I'll..."

Darkness.

_- _o0o -

Brightness, hurting his eyes.

Tyki Mikk, standing over him.

_"Hello, Boy."_

_- _o0o -

He didn't struggle; there was no point to it. He was too tired, and his head was hurting too bloody much for him to even to consider such a thing. Still, his apparent lack of action did spur a reaction from his seeming abductor, and a look of mild concern entered the eyes of his still-smirking opponent. "Not going to attack me?"

"There is no point," he hoarsely responded as the Noah moved to scoop him up. "I'm in no shape to fight… besides… if you wanted to kill me straight away you would've done so by now…"

Vaguely, he recalled the sensation of having his heart pierced, recalling the cold creeping into his limbs as he lay motionless and watched the moon all while his vision grew dimmer; he had thought he would die then – he had wanted to deny it with every fibre of his being, but there simply was no strength left to do it. He hadn't died then; his Innocence had wanted him to live and had ensured it. However, this time around, things were different; there was nothing and no one there to save him now…

He wanted to put an end to it all – to the throbbing headache threatening to cleave his skull – and he wanted it to such a degree that he even resorted to asking his enemy to be merciful enough to knock him the Hell out before going through with it, and surprisingly enough the Noah obliged.

He couldn't say what had taken place after that; unconsciousness spared him the details of the events which took place, but voices and fleeting sensations still left their mark.

_- _o0o -

"_Hey, what the Hell do you think you're doing?"_

A voice, uttering a question in a dangerous tone. It seemed almost familiar to him, and invoked the image of a ponytailed swordsman with Asian features and a near-permanent scowl on his face, his dark eyes narrowed in disgust as they fell on the ugly world before them. Always snarling, always pissed off.

"_Let him go… now."_

_Why?_

_You wouldn't even shake my hand because I'm cursed…_

"_You bastard!"_

A redhead wearing an eye patch. Always smiling; didn't smile then, his usual grin discarded in favour of a grim expression to match his tone of voice.

_- _o0o -

His body was shifted, and gloved fingertips trailed down his cheek.

Sharp breaths were drawn at the realisation of the leverage held by the enemy.

His body was shifted again, and his mind sank deeper into the mud; deeper into the darkness, but Allen really couldn't bring himself to care.

_- _o0o -

He only ever heard about the massive attack on Headquarters which had taken place when it had since long come to pass, and he never really paid much heed to the move which followed it. Once news reached him of the fact that he had been abandoned – that he had been left to the virtually nonexistent mercy of the Earl by his very own comrades – it was as though a light had been extinguished within him, leaving him in a state complete darkness. Whichever feeble hopes he may have harboured of someday returning to the Order died then, his silent anguish sending him off into the final stages of Awakening.

Wave after wave of pain came over him and overwhelmed him to such a degree that he had screamed himself raw in virtually no time at all, writhing pitifully in the arms that kept him restrained – kept him from hurting himself. Voices spoke to him soothingly, telling him to calm down and to breathe, but he could not focus on them; the pain was in the way of them. Within his head, a murdering migraine resided, a mighty headache which felt like it was going to split his head in two at any moment. He screamed again, but was soon silenced, by means unknown along with a voice, unbelievably calm, along with a piece of cloth, damp and cool, which was pressed against his forehead, burning with fever. "Calm down… It'll settle down soon…"

He didn't believe in it; couldn't believe in it. It was the voice of a liar after all; the voice of an enemy. His breath quickened, getting even shallower. He inhaled oxygen like he could never have enough of it, but a hand clamped itself over his nose and mouth. "Breathe slowly," the voice urged, but he struggled instead, his eyes still shut tight.

The voice; he wanted it to shut up and go away, yet he found himself clinging to every word it uttered like a lifeline.

The hand on his mouth was removed once more and he could breathe again. "Hurts…" he breathed.

"I know," the voice responded. "Bear with it. It will be over before you know it."

It was another lie; of that, he was strangely certain.

_- _o0o -

He was dreaming again; he knew that much for certain, or did he really?

After all, maybe it was the other end that was all just a figment of his overactive imagination or perhaps the very realistic nightmare he had kept drifting into every now and then; voices all around him, a feeling of delirium mixed with another which caused him to feel like he was on fire; like he had been infected. Maybe all the events so far had just been a part of a fever dream which refused to let go, its claws keeping a firm grip, not intending on setting him loose until the moment when he was truly dead; a ragdoll having outlived its purpose, and a child soldier who had started to question his.

The Shadow had always been within him he supposed, to some extent at least; it was only so that recent events had triggered something deep hidden within him, resulting in dreams or nightmares where the Shadow appeared, larger and clearer than ever, whenever he passed a mirror or some other surface displaying his reflection, giving him a full view of the one who'd been stalking his very being for quite some time…

Ever since that incident in China where he had, in an attempt to save some traitor whose Innocence had gone ballistic on him, surpassed his known limits in order to "save everyone" as he had a certain tendency to try out when encountering situations such as that one. Nevertheless, attempting a full release to save the life and soul of a Fallen One he had obviously broken something; that much was for sure and you didn't need Komui or an X-ray to figure that out. Not that he'd had much time to ponder a matter such as that one, as he had by then had his brain invaded by all these memories of Suman Dark, and then upon finding said man's body inside that forest of bamboo, he had foolishly found himself believing that he had actually managed to save something other than just the soon-to-be carcass of a broken man.

Ironic as it was, funny even in a quite morbid manner, Allen had found himself aware of the fact that Innocence, this so called tool of God, had been the one to steal that man's soul, leaving Suman Dark's empty and broken body behind as it went back into the shape Innocence took before reacting to a chosen apostle or other matter conveniently at hand…

However, Allen had not been thinking about such matters at all at the time following Suman Dark's departure to the afterlife, as he was far too busy staring death in the eye as Tyki Mikk plunged a hole into his heart. At that time he had been far too much of an emotional wreck to think clearly, but the thoughts themselves lay unforgotten in the deeper parts of his mind, only to emerge on the lone nights which followed within the Asian Branch, where the constant throbbing of his cursed eye had caused repeated episodes of insomnia, during which he kept thinking thoughts which had never really occurred to him before, allowing a previously planted seed of doubt to grow.

Tyki Mikk had failed his assassination that time, but not because of lack of ability, but rather because he didn't stay long enough to make sure his victim bled out completely. Had he done so, then Allen supposed he'd bitten the dust there and then, being killed by a Noah while he still had his dignity as an exorcist intact. Now however, he supposed his prospects of dying honourably had decreased a lot or diminished completely, since he would likely be joining the enemy ranks within the near future.

As for how he knew what had been setting motion, Allen was far from the polite and somewhat thick-headed and naïve fifteen-year-old as he had made himself out to be. Wraithlike orbs along with a manically wide grin every time he passed by a mirror was a pretty telling sign of what awaited him.

It wasn't fair; it really wasn't.

_- _o0o -

"_You're naïve. We're destroyers, not saviours."_

Tired silver-grey eyes bored themselves into his back where he sat a few steps down, but he didn't look back.

"_I know that… Still… I want to…"_

_- _o0o -


	2. Echoes

…

_- _o0o -

**Echoes**

_- _o0o -

"_**You're naïve. We're destroyers, not saviours."**_

_- _o0o -

_Then why do we want to save so much?_

_- _o0o -

_The ground was stained with blood._

_Dead bodies were lying everywhere._

_A lonely world._

_A broken world._

_A twisted world._

_A world stained in crimson._

_And on the floor lay a figure, a familiar figure, unmoving, stained in red._

_Long raven-black hair fanned out on the ground._

_Crows were feeding on nearby corpses._

_- _o0o -

"_Damn you, Allen Walker!"_

"_Why did you betray us again?"_

_He stood there, staring numbly at the stained blade in his hands, all while the ground started breaking apart beneath him. Then he looked up._

"_Because it was my fate."_

_The ground beneath him cracked open, but he just stood there, waiting to be consumed by the dark abyss which lay below. His eyes slid closed, intending never to open again._

"_This is the end."_

_Light exploded, embracing him fully._

_- _o0o -

He awoke with a start, filled to the brim with an undefined sense of dread of something yet to come. Dreams – some of them so vivid he almost mistook them for actual memories – plagued him at night and sometimes also in the day when he found himself drifting off whenever he had remained too long in a state of idleness, and such stages were quite common since he was in a state of captivity, even though his supposed cage held no visible bars to speak of. He sat up in the bed, still breathing heavily, his wide eyes surveying the room where it lay in darkness, tracing the vaguely defined outlines of greyish shapes of furniture amongst the deeper shadows. It looked the same as it had done during his other nightly awakenings and he himself knew as much, however, his eyes still continued to survey them with a sense of familiarity all while looking for something looking even remotely out of place, something which would serve to indicate that he was not alone in there.

It was a paranoid thought; he'd admit as much, though he certainly had his reasons to harbour them, considering the circumstances.

His eyes slowly glided back and forth over the room before he once again settled back against the pillows, breathing a bit more easily than he had previously. It did not take long before his eyes slid shut once more and darkness pulled him back down under into yet another dream, just as vivid as the other ones.

_- _o0o -

"_You're a Noah."_

_Tyki Mikk looked at him, studying his reaction._

_He shivered, squirmed beneath the intense scrutiny, intensively wishing he could be elsewhere._

"_What… is that supposed to mean?"_

_The other reached for a cigarette._

"_You're the host of the Fourteenth's Memories."_

_He felt ill._

_- _o0o -

_Heretic._

"_I think I have suffered long enough for the sake of Innocence."_

_He couldn't go back there._

"_Living as the Destroyer only brought me pain…"_

_He wouldn't go back; there was nothing for him to go back to._

_It was too late; it was all too late and what had been done could no longer be undone._

_- _o0o -

"_He stabbed me with Mugen…"_

_Hands, familiar and surprisingly gentle, unravelled the bandages wrapped around his palm before moving on to examine the wound with a great deal of interest._

"_This must've hurt bad."_

_He resisted the urge to wince._

"_It did."_

_Tyki let go of his hands, getting to his feet._

"_We're going to have to clean them."_

_- _o0o -

"_Let go…"_

"_No," the raven-haired samurai snarled, retaining his grip on him. "Not until you listen."_

"_I won't go back to the Order."_

"_Did I tell you to go back to the Order, Moyashi?"_

_After a few moments of hesitation, he shook his head._

"_Good," the other scoffed. "Now that you finally seem to have gotten that inside your brain then would you be willing to listen to me?"_

_He stared at him, confused and suspicious at the same time._

"_If not to take me back to the Order, why are you here?"_

_- _o0o -

_Tyki exhaled some smoke._

"_Having second thoughts, are we?"_

_He instantly tensed slightly before tiredly shaking his head._

"_I don't want to return to the Order… but…"_

"_But?" Tyki asked, his voice smooth._

"_I don't want to suffer anymore at the hands of my fate, either one of them…"_

"_You want to die?" Tyki asked softly._

"_No… And yes."_

_- _o0o -

_"It can't really be true. Allen wouldn't possibly do such a thing; he couldn't."_

_Lenalee, taking in the news, crying._

_"We didn't think that he would join the Noah either, but he apparently did."_

_Lavi, wearing a dark look on his face._

_"I agree with Lenalee… Allen wouldn't do such a thing."_

_Miranda, hesitant, shivering in the cold._

_"The Allen I know wouldn't do such a thing…"_

_Crowley, looking extremely uncomfortable with the subject of discussion._

_"He might not be the Allen we knew anymore…"_

_- _o0o -

_"So in the end it means that our orders to hunt down and bring back Allen Walker and - - remain the same?"_

_A blond man, taking down notes._

_"Shouldn't we try talking to them instead of hunting them down?"_

_Lavi, actually making a good point._

_Tiedoll, sighing._

_"I'm afraid that this matter might've gone far above the level where you can talk…"_

_Cloud Nine, decisive._

_"Try talking all you want, but our primary aim will be to capture and restrain them."_

_- _o0o -

_Another wave of nausea swept through him._

_He was shaking with cold, yet felt like his blood was on fire._

_His body, going through another change…_

_- _o0o -

"_Allen?"_

_- _o0o -

_An ambush._

_Running._

_Voices calling, calling for him._

_The world being drained of its colour, a world of black and white._

_The Fourteenth, looking at him from afar, waiting._

_Surrounded._

_Fighting._

_Restrained._

_Struggling._

"_Let go!"_

_- _o0o -

Silver-grey eyes flew open again, and he drew in a sharp breath, but even though his eyes were wide open, the dream didn't end there; instead, it clung to him, continuing to echo within.

_- _o0o -

_Something was breaking inside of him, as though he was literally breaking apart._

_Rage, suddenly appearing, overflowing._

_"Can't we talk this over, Allen?"_

_"Allen, come back to us… Please…"_

_His struggles, temporarily ceasing._

_His voice, quiet._

_"You have no place for a Noah among you… not even for one with Innocence."_

_He was breaking, falling apart, piece by piece…_

_Suddenly, the world seemed to utterly twisted…_

_"Amongst you I was but a pawn of your superiors as well as the one prophesised to be your saviour, the Destroyer of Time… I have fulfilled my duty by killing the Earl. You have no right to ask anything of me any longer."_

_His former comrades, in doubt._

_"Is it truly Allen speaking, or is it the Noah?"_

_He bit his lip._

_"I'm speaking on the behalf of both of them… As Allen Walker, the exorcist, the Destroyer of Time… and as Allen Walker, the Noah, the Musician… No, the Creator of Music…"_

_His former comrades, in denial._

_"He's lost his mind to the Noah… We have no choice but to…"_

_**He was right all along…**_

_His teeth dug deeper into his bottom lip._

_**He was right all along…**_

_"You people have no idea of anything… justifying your actions by saying the counterpart is evil… Blind to the evil which resides in your own hearts…"_

_His former comrades, in disbelief.._

_"What?"_

_**He was right all along…**_

_"The Fourteenth was right."_

_He took a step backwards, away from them._

"_About everything… all along…"_

_- _o0o -

_Right about what?_

He stared up at the ceiling, breathing heavily. It provided him no answers.

_- _o0o -

Allen looked up into the bathroom mirror, taking in his somewhat altered appearance.

His eyes, previously silver-grey, had taken on specks of gold on the iris, a clear indication that his awakening was still not complete, even with the faint outline of crosses which had begun to form on his forehead.

The shadow of the Fourteenth was still hovering above him in the mirror. Allen could feel him staring but didn't look up, looking down instead at his useless left arm which hung in a sling. Other than an occasional twitch from the fingers every once in a while – such as whenever an akuma passed by – Allen hadn't seen it do anything during the week it had already been since he had been brought to this place.

Having been left mostly to his own devices after his partial recovery, Allen found himself spending a lot of time in one of the Earl's libraries, flipping through tome after tome in search of something vaguely interesting, to help him pass the time. He'd been there for more than a week already, and with little option to do otherwise, Allen accepted the fact that he had been abandoned by his comrades with as much grace and indifference as he had accepted everything else; they probably thought he'd betrayed them or something anyhow. Initially, he had despaired to some degree when the hushed whispers in the halls reached him, but all that just faded as time went on and he shut himself up inside his own world, playing that piano like it was his only purpose. Though on second thought, maybe it was his real purpose, all things considered.

_- _o0o -

It was a strange feeling, a fleeting one at first but as time went on it came to last a bit longer as he lay in a stuffed chair back in one of the many houses held by the Earl himself or one of the Noah, staring up at the painted ceiling above him, at the stencilled patterns up there which depicted many different things. The days he spent this way, staring blankly at the ceiling for periods of time in-between his other duties – duties which honestly did not go much beyond making an appearance during family dinners and appearing by the Earl's side at his beck and call like some pretentiously loyal dog awaiting further instructions – those days were certainly dull in themselves, but it was still better than spending time locked up underground down in the cellar bound in chains, but his current routine felt rather like a prison in itself, suffocating him. Surely, he was perfectly able to run away at any given moment but really, what would be the point of it? It wasn't like he'd figured out anywhere else to go anyway and if he "betrayed" the Earl only death awaited him, but on the other hand, when it finally came to that it was all a question of time before he received a death sentence anyway.

To say that he'd given up completely was a bit of an exaggeration; he had merely given up on actively fighting a fate which seemed rather inevitable to him at that moment. His mind was being eaten away regardless of what he did and thought, so it probably didn't matter whether he denied and fought his fate or merely complied to the degree he deemed it compliable.

The Fourteenth.

So far, Allen had only met the man's shadow, the form his Memories had taken on, but he'd heard a voice on several different occasions although he wasn't able to hear what it said many of those times, as though the signal was interfered with somehow or like they simply weren't on the same wavelength. However, Allen could feel how the other's presence became more apparent for each passing day. The shadow still trailed behind him wherever he went, but as of late he had suddenly started regarding it as a somewhat physical presence as he could somehow feel its hands then they landed on his shoulders where he stood before a mirror, staring at his own visage as well as the one belonging to the shadow towering over him from behind.

Walking up to the piano in the room which had been put off as "his", he suddenly made up his mind, lifting the cover off of the keys before sitting down and trailing his fingertips over them for a few moments, seemingly lost in thought. Then he pressed down one key and then another and a melody, unknown to him but still familiar, was being played out by his own hands.

It wasn't long before he started hearing the lyrics in his head, telling a story that had gone by untold for long. It didn't appear to be his story, but it was still one which deserved to be told again and again until no one was left unaware of what it had been about. But then he suddenly stopped, eyes glazing over slightly before he was once again pulled back to reality by a heavy hand landing on his shoulder. Allen looked up, startled, at the person who'd suddenly appeared beside him. A white domino mask covered in strange patterns was what he saw instead of a face and although he couldn't see the other's eyes clearly he still knew that they were resting on him.

The other had white hair just like him, although it was quite long and waist-length by the looks of it. The other's shoulders were adorned with what looked like a thin white cape, one which contrasted greatly to the odd almost greyish skin colour all members of the Noah clan had. However, it was a Noah who was entirely unfamiliar to him, and he silently wondered whether or not it was one of the newly reincarnated ones.

"Allen Walker," the other said, voice flat. "Just the person I was looking for."

Allen said nothing, waiting for the other to continue.

"We need to talk."

_- _o0o -


	3. Revelations

…

_- _o0o -

**Revelations**

_- _o0o -

"By now you're probably wondering who I am, why I am here and why I suddenly want to talk to you, but the truth is we're running out of time," the masked one said while dragging him off to god-knows-where. "That applies to both of us."

"How so?" Allen asked while trying his best to keep up.

"I've seen this bloody chain of events unfold dozens of times already, but now everything has gotten fucked up and there's not a thing I can do about it other than spill at least part of my guts to you… figuratively speaking," the other said, heaving a sigh. "Summon the Ark."

Allen paused in his stride. "What?"

"Summon the Ark," the other insisted, sounding impatient. "Being who you are, you should be perfectly able to control that thing, so hurry up and get us in there before the Earl or anyone else discovers you're missing."

Allen simply stared at the other, not quite knowing what to do. Seeing this, the other sighed, putting his hands onto his shoulders. "Okay, listen to me," the masked Noah said. "Are you listening? Good. Now concentrate. I need you to 'will' that Ark here because it will respond to your summons. Trust me."

Right… and it was so bloody easy to trust some weird masked guy who had just appeared before him, no introduction or anything, and started demanding things of him. Still, he focused his energy on calling the Ark to him even though he wasn't that confident that it would work. Still, somehow it did and it caught him by such an amount of surprise that he just stood there and stared for several seconds before the other person got impatient and pushed him into it before following along. The gate closed behind them and they were whisked off to some other place. Allen turned to the masked Noah, uncertain as to how to act in this new situation where he had left the Earl; he had bloody freaking escaped and he had barely even reflected on it and it had been so bloody easy once he'd actually been put up to it. "Who are you?" he finally asked, shifting uncomfortably in the tense silence which lay between them. The other didn't reply at first, favouring having a look around rather than answering questions.

"Who are you?" Allen eventually repeated, having concluded that the other hadn't heard the question, upon which the masked person suddenly looked up at him as if seeing him there for the first time.

"Long story," the other responded, shrugging mildly. "Complicated too, but we'll get to that in a bit. First, we need to head somewhere where we can talk properly, somewhere no one will come looking for you."

Allen frowned slightly; he honestly couldn't think of many such places, thoughts moving along the lines of places where he had gone either with the circus, with Mana, with Cross or on some exorcist mission. Then suddenly, a place popped up inside his mind and came out his mouth before he had even considered it properly. "Martel."

_- _o0o -

Severing all connections following their arrival at the city of Martel, Allen stepped out of the Ark, breathing in the fresh night air, seemingly for the first time in ages. For a while, he simply stood there, his eyes closed as he breathed steadily, enjoying the smell of fresh air as it invaded his nostrils. For lack of better description, he felt alive again, like he had woken up from a very long dream. However, his awakening was rudely interrupted as his newly companion also stepped out and had a look around. "Well… this place is about as trashed as I remember it being and that's saying something…"

"Look, I don't care if you're God or whatever; don't disturb my reunion with myself," Allen muttered, still not opening his eyes, earning himself a chuckle in return. Something nagged at his consciousness, but he paid it no heed, focusing his efforts solely on trying to clear his mind. "So…" he continued after a while, turning to face his newly acquired companion. "Who are you anyway?"

A slight chuckle answered him. He kicked up an eyebrow in response, following which the other stopped and took on an expression of utter indifference. "Simply put, I am God," the other finally answered, voice frank. "Or at least I am an existence which is comparable and equal to that of God."

Allen blinked, positive that he had not just heard that. "Huh?"

The other tilted his head to the side. "I said, I am an existence which is comparable and equal to that of God," he repeated. "But in the end what I am is irrelevant; what is more important is what you are and what you are not…"

Allen stared, although he tried not to, but really it was hard not to stare at a person who had just proclaimed himself to be the existence otherwise known as God. "I don't get it," he finally said. "You're God?"

The other nodded. "Yes, more or less."

"You are really God Almighty?" Allen insisted. "Or are you simply mad?"

The other looked fairly thoughtful for a second there before finally answering. "…A bit of both actually, since all Gods are a bit fucked up mentally after a day on the job so… yeah. Besides, in order to invent everything one needs to be a genius and you know what they say about the border between ingenuity and madness, don't you?"

Allen quirked an eyebrow, "Ask for one, get the other into the bargain?"

The answering smirk told him all that he needed to know.

_- _o0o -

"Let's talk about God, Allen," the masked person said.

Allen stared at him for a couple of seconds where they sat deep within the city in what remained of the underground chamber where Lala had sung her last song. "You dragged me all the way here to talk about yourself?" he asked, not even bothering to hide his sarcasm. "I should've known."

"Actually, I am not much a fan of talking myself; I'm much more curious as to what you think about God…" the other replied with a shrug. "So… tell me what you think?"

Allen stared at him disbelievingly. "You really dragged me over here to talk about yourself, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't," the self-proclaimed god replied, voice flat. "While I am an existence comparable and equal to that of God, I am not God in a technical sense and I am definitely not your God."

"Then who are you?" Allen bit back. "On second thought, I don't care who you are as long as you give me a name to call you."

The other tilted his head to the side, seemingly contemplating his statement. "I've had many names," he then said. "However, due to a sudden lack of inspiration on my part, I shall name myself Malak."

"That's Arabic, isn't it?" Allen said, earning himself a nod in return.

"As for what I think about God, I wonder is there one in the first place?" he then offered a bit offhandedly. "I have honestly never given much of a thought to it as I have always been more concerned with dealing what was before me rather than what was above me…"

"Okay," Malak said, tilting his head to the other side. "Then tell me, Allen, is God cruel?"

Allen stared out into thin air, considering the question for a while before attempting to answer it. "God is cruel… I guess," he finally said. "Or maybe not cruel… just a bit inhuman at times, I guess… having no mercy to spare, especially not for his chosen ones…"

"Yes," Malak finally answered. "God is cruel, but have you ever given a thought as to why he is that way?"

Allen looked at him. "Personal preference?"

"No," the other replied, leaning back to stare up at what remained of the ceiling. "In order for a man to become God he must shed his humanity, because if he were to retain it he would still be human, no? You humans have for the longest time prescribed God with all these good human qualities like mercy and forgiveness, at the same time as you have given him all the bad ones while you're at it, making him a quite jealous and surprisingly merciless God who lets his rage down upon all, believer and nonbeliever alike. So… tell me, Allen… is that just?"

"That obviously depends on whose justice it serves and who benefits from it," Allen finally replied after a few moments of silence.

"True," Malak said. "For example the Church, which is supposedly there in order to serve God, has done unspeakable deeds in their self-righteousness and they've broken taboo after taboo only to try and gain an edge on 'the Greater Evil' and to win this war."

Allen said nothing, opting instead to look up at where the other was looking, spotting nothing out of the ordinary at first. Then, he found himself imagining seeing the starry sky outside, hidden from them by the layers of stone which lay above them. Allen looked around the chamber they were sitting in, eyes resting on the shadows which danced on the walls in response to the small fire which they had lit a couple of meters away to provide them with some light and additional warmth. Still, Allen found himself shivering slightly and pulled at the sleeves of the thin shirt he had been wearing when they so had so abruptly decided on making their getaway.

Next to him, Malak snorted and got to his feet. At the questioning stare Allen sent his way, the other awarded him with a slight pat on the head along with a "Stay here" before he disappeared in the darkness, leaving Allen alone with only the crackling fire as company.

Once again getting thoughtful, Allen considered his options; likely about to be considered a traitor, there was probably little else for him to do but hide since he was extremely likely to be hunted down by both sides, which wasn't a very nice thought but wasn't really anything new now that he thought about it. He sighed, shivering a bit and silently wondering about the odds of him catching pneumonia and dying in a desolate place like the one he was in at the moment. Then, all of a sudden, his silent musings were interrupted as something heavy, carrying the texture of fabric, was dumped onto his shoulders. Allen looked up, slightly startled, staring at the mask of Malak who had somehow come back into the chamber without him noticing.

"Say Allen…" he said, taking a seat and leaning his back against Allen's. "Have you ever heard the story about the angel who fell?"

"No," Allen truthfully responded, silently wondering what the other was getting at.

"Once upon a time," Malak started, his voice changing slightly. "…and this was pretty early on I tell you, back when God Almighty had recently created the human race in his image, there was an angel called Lucifer who protested greatly when God Almighty voiced his intent to let the humans rule the earth. And Lucifer said that such faulty creations like the humans surely wouldn't become very good stewards of the land, far too vain and too greedy for their own good, and he scoffed at their existence and proclaimed that the angels were far superior to them…"

"However," he continued. "God Almighty however did not appreciate the other mocking his latest masterpiece, and so he said that pride goeth before fall and so Lucifer was cast out of Heaven and fell."

"Lucifer, cast out alongside the fellow angels who shared his opinion, grew increasingly bitter as the time went along and eventually he took a new name, calling himself Satan, the Prosecutor… The humans themselves however also knew him as the Devil…" he went on. "And so many years came and went and the God and his angelic pawns fought many battles against the Devil and his demonic cohorts all while the latter gradually grew more powerful, fed by the many humans who believed in him and the many humans that broke their vows and committed the cardinal sins, until eventually he stood on equal footing with God."

Allen found himself closing his eyes again, feeling oddly soothed by the sound of the other's voice.

"And so they fought," Malak said, pausing briefly. "And knowing that neither could win without both of them dying in the process, the Devil issued a challenge to God that they would both reincarnate as humans and battle it out so that they would inflict less damage on the world anyone who survived would inherit from the other. And God, no longer Almighty, agreed. His angels, creatures having originated from him and tied to him at the same time, tried to discourage him but their efforts were for naught."

"And so the Devil stepped up from his realm in Hell and God stepped down from his in Heaven and both were reborn as humans, although with just a portion of their respective powers. And so they fought, fairly at first, until they eventually came to call upon their own respective armies to slay the other's all while the leaders continued battling it out by themselves. Eventually the Devil stood victorious, having won by impaling the avatar of God, and with him stood his chosen twelve demons, his twelve chosen apostles, and they bowed down to him. And so the Devil's Incarnate, a human going by the name of Noah, said: Build me an Ark who will carry two of each animal and if you must then choose a partner of the human race… there will be a great flood soon and all which is not on that Ark shall drown."

"While the twelve chosen went to do the Devil's bidding, one-hundred-and-seven dying angels lay on the battlefield and only one, Azrael, stood over the badly damaged body of their God, their human God, and so he said: All of us have a piece of God's power as all of us are originally his creations… as the scattered pieces of his soul and his heart we can still make ourselves into one unity and even if it is incomplete it is still better than having no God at all and letting the Devil reign as he sees fit…"

"Give me your power, he said to his fellow angels, give me your very souls so that I can piece together our Lord…"

"And so the hundred-and-eighth angel and single survivor pieced together the Heart of God before he too perished, leaving a hundred-and-nine fragments of God's Will to be scattered by the Great Flood all while the newly established Noah clan survived to start humanity anew…"

"God's Will became known as Innocence and those chosen by God became known as exorcists as they, using the tool which God had supplied them with, went to eradicate the akuma, the Devil-created machine which needed human souls to work. But you know the rest of that story so I won't bother, sorry," Malak said, tilting his head backwards. "Anyways, this story was a bunch of complete bullocks made up by me on the spot so just forget it… or wait… everything up until the point where the Devil and God Almighty stood on equal footing is true while the rest is made up. I'd make a pretty good storyteller, wouldn't I?"

Allen looked up so suddenly that he ended up hitting the back of his head hard against the other's, and judging from the muttered "Ouch", Malak had definitely felt it as well.

Said person sighed, "The real story from that point on is… well… long story short: God got pissed. God delivered judgment. God drenched humanity, except for the Noah clan who'd listened to the Devil and some lucky ones that were brought along for the ride. God, in the shape of a human, and the Devil, in the shape of a human called Noah, battled it out and surprisingly enough Noah emerged victorious, leaving God's rotting carcass behind as they went to procreate in order to get humanity started again."

Allen looked up again, carefully this time. "Wasn't Lucifer against the human race in the first place?" he asked somewhat tiredly.

"Oh… that," Malak finally responded after a couple of seconds. "He changed his mind because as it turned out they were pretty fun to play with."

"Anyways," he said, continuing with his story. "Of God and his army remained only one-hundred-and-nine units of Innocence, representing God himself or the Heart along with the hundred-and-eight angels who fought alongside him. And these were then scattered by the Great Flood. Any questions?"

Allen sighed. "Why are there fourteen Noah?" he finally asked. "Weren't there only thirteen if one counted the Earl?"

The other was silent for a couple of seconds before letting out a thoughtful hum. "Good question."

Allen said nothing, waiting for the other to continue.

"To put it simply," Malak said. "Since all of humanity descended from the Noah, all human carry a the Noah gene. However, anyone who is not one of the twelve apostles chosen to serve the Earl who is still able to somehow obtain Memories is an irregularity and shouldn't exist… not logically, at least… Do you know what that person, the Fourteenth, really is?"

Allen kept his silence, waiting.

"He is the new God," the other announced. "Born to counteract the Earl who carries the power of the Devil… Just like the Devil was once one of God's angels, it's only natural that the new God will be born from the Devil's demons, or Noah in this case, and wield their power. Ironic, isn't it?"

He responded with a slight hum of agreement, all while silently wondering where all this were going.

"You were born as a human chosen by God, carrying Innocence," Malak continued. "Humanity shunned you and your parents abandoned you… and the Fourteenth, failing to kill the Earl and thereby failing to become the new God, passed his Memories on to you."

Allen looked up again, turning around to face the other completely. "…Okay?"

"…I'm God?"

The other nodded. "You're the incarnate of the Devil's Reflection with the potential to become God, yes."

"So I have the potential to become God, but am not necessarily fated to be one?" Allen asked, seeking confirmation.

Malak nodded again. "The Earl is spinning out of control more and more, just like the world of humans which he helped reinstate," he then said. "Eventually someone will have to put an end to it and press rewind so that we can all start over again. If not, then the world will be ending for real."

Allen said nothing, partly stunned and at the same time deeply sceptical.

"Look…" the other finally said. "Even though you will essentially be doing the same as the Earl if you take up your inherited position as a Candidate for Divinity, you will still reshape the world way better than anything the Earl ever came up with… with you in power, there will be no akuma and there certainly won't be any need for exorcists to exterminate them either because there will be no Innocence… so even if you choose to restore everything, to bring all the departed ones back to live the lives they deserved to live, making it so that all those torn from their families in order to serve God as exorcists would never go through that and hence also making sure that you would likely never meet them and they probably wouldn't be meeting each other, for better or for worse."

"Humans are not supposed to play God," Allen countered.

"God said that he created humans in his own image and as such he gave you all the potential to rise and become his equals… unintentionally, of course… but it was still a power that he bestowed upon you although it was the Devil who lured you to use it," Malak countered.

"But I agree," he then added. "Humans should not play God… But are you a human still, Allen _**Neah**_ Walker?"

Allen looked at him for a couple of moments before turning his eyes away and staring at the fire. "As a partially awakened Noah, I wonder if I'd still have the right to call myself that…"

_- _o0o -

"So what happens now?" Allen finally asked, watching the run rise as he stood on top of a winding staircase in the abandoned city.

"That's up to you to decide," Malak said, reaching up and pulling the mask away from his face.

Allen turned around and stared in surprise at the face he now saw and the clear eyes in yellowish gold which stared back at him. For a brief moment he was too shocked to speak, but then the feeling of shock suddenly faded and he stared at the other instead, his eyes curious more than anything. "What did you do?" he asked. "What did you do back when you became God in your world, Fourteenth?"

The other took a step forward, taking his place next to him as he continued surveying the surrounding and fairly desolate-looking landscape.

"I did what I thought was necessary and rose to the position of God," Malak replied with a mild shrug. "At first, I genuinely believed in whatever cause I was fighting for, only to gradually realise that to them I was nothing but a puppet, a tool to be used and discarded. Allen Walker was a tool, an orphan child starved for affection who wanted to protect those dear to him but who didn't realise that he was a tool until he was about to be disposed off at someone else's convenience."

"To be completely truthful," he continued. "I didn't want to believe it at first and I kept on denying it for as long as I could, pretending that I were still fighting for my own ideals and not the ones others told me to hold dear… then, I started Awakening and things changed…"

"Like you, I too was taken by Tyki Mikk and brought to the Earl, which was probably either the best or the worst thing that ever happened to me," Malak sighed. "Had I stayed in the Order, I would no doubt have been imprisoned and experimented on by those high-and-mighty people down in Central so I somehow managed to avoid that kind of fate… but I was still torn between my duties, not only as an exorcist and as a Noah but as a human and as myself, and with all due honesty I was terrified at the prospect of the old Fourteenth's Memories overwriting mine and of him erasing my very existence. In the end however, I finally realized that it wasn't so bad… likely because I, in my desperate struggle to remain as 'Allen', overpowered the Memories and swallowed them up instead of the opposite… He and I had a fight for dominance, and in the end I won."

"But not without me having to pay the price, obviously," he continued. "And the price which I had to pay was in knowledge, both in attaining it and forgetting things; I got the Memories of the Fourteenth but gradually lost the ones I had as Allen Walker, the memories of my childhood, the happy times I spent with Mana and the miserable but still educational years I had with Cross… My admission as an exorcist and all that just gradually faded, leaving only shadows behind, but more importantly I, to a certain degree, lost my ability to feel."

"I no longer felt like Allen Walker… or as a human for that matter, so I thought a new name was appropriate," Malak said. "Malak was a name some Arabic woman gave to be after witnessing me in action with Crowned Clown… although I did find it kind of ironic at the time, I later on realised that I very much appreciated irony... which is likely one of the reasons as to why I ended up where I did."

"And where did you end up?" Allen asked, receiving a mild shrug in return.

"Realising I had been abandoned by my comrades following my capture, I grew bitter," Malak responded. "I allied myself with the Noah, and grew rather close to Tyki Mikk. We had a couple of missions together. Though they were probably more like tests on my part; the Earl wanted to test my loyalty by sending me and Tyki out to find and destroy Innocence, no doubt taking into consideration that we were likely to run into the Order sooner or later. But with me, the Earl gravely underestimated not only me but also my bond to humanity at that time; he thought that I would be irreversibly lost to the Order because of their betrayal in not coming to my aid… but at the same time, he forgot about the fact that I had always treasured my friends far more than the Order itself, so in truth he miscalculated…"

"Not that I'm looking down on the man for that," he then added, shaking his head. "After all, I myself actually believed that I had washed my hands of the Order and all that was in it. I reasoned that since they betrayed be first, I had no reason to have any mercy to spare. However, at times, reason just isn't enough."

"On one of those missions I ended up being spotted by someone in the Order. Hence, a mission was issued to come and bring me back," Malak said, staring into the fire. "Facing your old friends in battle when they're out to capture you isn't very nice… Seeing their eyes filled with hatred and fear simply because of what you are is worse…"

He went silent for a while, before speaking again, recounting a specific event of such a kind, all while Allen listened intently, giving an occasional shiver.

"And then?" Allen asked, staring at the dying embers that remained of the fire that they had lit merely hours ago.

"We'll continue the story tomorrow," Malak replied. "You need any rest that you can get since no matter what you decide to do in the end things will get busy… very, very busy…"

"Whatever… 'God'," Allen said, sarcasm defining his very being. "Goodnight."

Malak didn't answer; he simply stared at him for a while before getting up, shrugging off his coat and spreading it over the other male. "Goodnight."

And then he was gone.

_- _o0o -

When Allen woke up, Malak was already there, frying some fish over the open fire where the flames had rekindled with the addition of more fuel. "Good morning," the former greeted, watching the other's mild state of confusion with a great deal of amusement, in particular when the latter noticed the coat which had been laid over him. "You're up just in time for breakfast."

"What about the continuation?" Allen asked tiredly, rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, that," Malak said, tilting his head slightly to the side. "I'm ready to start at anytime, but would you like some breakfast first?"

Allen blinked, but accepted the offered piece of food nonetheless. He wasn't even hungry anymore, gradually growing more and more detached from his physical state of being, but he still needed to eat; he needed to survive.

"Right," Malak started, looking thoughtfully up towards nothing in particular. "So after that, I was basically branded as a traitor by the Order. Cross disappeared and was presumed to have been assassinated, and Kanda of all people seemed to be set out to redeem me. Difficult to believe, huh?"

Allen nodded.

"Then Kanda of all people, heeding Lavi's advice of all things, decided to go AWOL," Malak continued, snickering. "To go look for me of all people, would you believe it?"

"It does sound a bit farfetched," Allen admitted, depositing the remains of his breakfast into the fire. "But do go on."

"Anyhow," Malak continued, looking thoughtful. "Around that time I had already Awakened, mostly because Kanda had stabbed me with his Innocence and all. Noah and Innocence do not mix well together, obviously, so being stabbed with an Innocence awoke the Noah within me, causing me to revert fully for a limited period of time, to the Earl's endless delight…"

"In addition to this, on a somewhat unrelated note," he went on, smiling benevolently. "Tyki and I started getting along really well together…"

Allen nearly spat out his breakfast at this.

"Anyways," Malak continued, shrugging. "I returned to the Earl to play my role as the Musician, playing the piano in the Ark while the other Noah were out slaughtering my former comrades…"

Malak closed his eyes for a moment, falling silent. "I really couldn't celebrate it," he then said. "I really couldn't take any kind of joy in it whatsoever, the death of my former comrades…"

"Anyways," Malak said, adding another stick into the fire. "Then Kanda found me somehow when I was out walking in the rain, then I kind of had a mental breakdown and things kind of went downhill from there. I got second thoughts, betrayed the Earl, killed him and then kind of got myself killed."

"Kind of?" Allen questioned.

Malak shrugged mildly in response. "It was only the first round. I died and went back to the beginning, and went through this all over again, pretty much the same things in pretty much the same order, losing more and more of my sanity as I went along, until I finally reached another ending… one where I killed the Earl and survived."

"And?"

Malak closed his eyes again. "Kanda pulled me out of there, god knows how he did it, but apparently he did," he then said, shrugging mildly. "Then I had another minor breakdown and that was that."

"However," he continued. "Apparently, there were some stuff going on which was far beyond my range of knowledge and influence. I ran away with Kanda and went into hiding, oblivious of the plans others had apparently made for me…"

"Plans?" Allen questioned.

Malak shrugged mildly. "For one thing, the Cross Marian in my world was a Noah, and after my defection he teamed up with a few of the other Noah on this grand master plan which I honestly wanted to be no part of."

Allen blinked. "Master is a what now?" he spat out, sincerely hoping he had somehow misheard that last one.

"Why, a Noah, of course," Malak responded, highly amused by his facial expression. "But you needn't worry; this Cross Marian isn't one. I've checked already."

Allen silently wondered whether or not he should heave a sigh of relief at this.

"Also, speaking about the Devil," Malak said, looking thoughtful. "He was apparently assassinated last night…"

Allen looked up, eyes wide. "He was what?"

"Assassinated," Malak calmly repeated, levelling him with a look. "By Apocrypho-something, a creep I will be telling you about later."

"Who's Apocrypho-?" Allen started, only to get shushed.

"One tale at the time, my young friend, one tale at the time…"

"So," Malak continued. "I went into hiding with Kanda for a while, but before long the Order somehow found out about our location and we soon found ourselves pursued by our former comrades in the Order who had survived the Noah onslaught this time around…"

"I started having visions of the Fourteenth, freaked out, actually met him, discovered he was quite a decent guy after all, and then I once again came to the realisation that he was bat-shit insane and that he strove to take over…" he shrugged mildly, reaching into the pocket of his coat to withdraw a deck of cards, starting to shuffle them. "And then things went out of my control – in a matter of speaking, I suppose – as another player appeared in the game."

"Another player?" Allen automatically repeated, eyeing the other's eased movements. "Who?"

Malak stopped shuffling, looked up at him, smiled. He pulled a card at random, holding it up for Allen to see.

A joker grinned back at them both.

"My other self." Malak held out a card for Allen to take. "I established a kind of connection with my other self, who played on my deep-seated fear of the Fourteenth by pretending to be him, sending nightmares my way to drive me closer to the edge."

"Why would he… your other self… do that?" Allen asked, accepting the card and bringing it closer so that he could look at it in more detail.

Malak shrugged mildly. "I can only assume, as my perception of things became pretty mudded over time," he said, drawing another card and looking at it. "But I suppose he was in a similar situation to the one I am in right now, wanting to speed things up in order to put an end to things…"

He went quiet for a brief moment, seemingly staring unseeingly at the card in silent contemplation. Then he looked moderately surprised, smiled, and then he turned it around to show it to Allen.

Another grinning joker, a black one, lay in his hand.

"I'm different from him," Malak said, cheerful yet strangely solemn at the same time. "If anything, then I am far more reckless… He seemed to prefer more subtle and manipulative means to have his ways, keeping his identity not only from me but from all of us… and here I am, unmasked and telling you all about things you would probably have figured out later on anyhow, breaking every single rule I can think of in the meantime… Because, when time is scarce, a few shortcuts might be needed to make it on time."

Allen stared at the joker which lay in his own hand, the red one. "What's the hurry?" he asked, looking up at Malak.

"Well…" Malak looked thoughtful for a second, adding back the joker into the deck of cards as he continued shuffling them. "For one thing, I will probably cease to exist within the near future, so I would very much like to see you overcome what you need to overcome before that, so that I will be able to meet my Maker with something more than just 'destroyed the world' in my resume…"

Allen blinked, honestly dumbfounded. "You did WHAT?"

Malak just shrugged mildly in response. "Anyways, putting that other matter aside," he continued. "I was in hiding out with Kanda, the remnants of the Noah Family plotted, and the Order apparently decided it was open season on supposed traitors… I think it was because they apparently thought we had been involved in an earlier assault and following massacre on them for some odd, inexplicable reason…"

"Evidently, a few of my former comrades had doubts and thought we could be innocent, but even so their overall objective was to either capture or kill us on sight, which wouldn't have made much of a difference, really… since they were both equal to death in the end," he went on, shuffling the cards. "And evidently, the Noah clan decided to milk this opportunity for what it was worth in terms of making me lose what little faith I still had in humanity… and they succeeded, for the most part."

"In order to create, one must first destroy," Malak said, leaning back a bit to gaze up at imaginary stars. "He told me so. But… he was also the one who told me that I needed to choose for myself what kind of future I'd wish for… and so I made a choice…"

_- o0o -_

_"Say, Kanda…"_

_Kanda looked up, staring disdainfully at him where he sat. "What do you want, Moyashi?"_

_He sat at the piano, lifting the lid off the keys. "Do you hate me?"_

_Chains rattled. "Right now, then yes."_

_He stared at the keys, noticing how black and white they were. "What do you hate about me?"_

_Kanda snorted. "Do you want me to make a list?"_

_Allen sighed and turned back to the piano, continuing his random pressing of the keys._

_Kanda's eyes narrowed. "Why did you join the Noah?"_

_Allen once again stopped playing but he still didn't turn around. "I already am part Noah so it isn't like I joined them or anything."_

_"Then why did you join their cause?" Kanda hissed back at him._

_"I don't know…" Allen replied, still with his back to Kanda. "Because it's my fate?"_

_Kanda's eyebrow twitched. "Keep fate out of this; I've since long grown sick of it."_

_Allen turned around to face him, still smiling._

_"Is that so?" he responded. "Does that apply to your own fate as well?"_

_"Well…" Kanda shot back. "To be completely honest, then yes. I hate my own destiny."_

_"And you hate the fact that you met me as well, right?" Allen continued, tilting his head slightly to the side._

_Kanda snorted at him and turned his own head to the side, refusing to look at him. "Well… Since I'm about to die by your hand as you destroy the world in just a couple of hours then yes, I do hate the fact that I met you."_

_Allen got up, turning his back on him. "Actually I regret meeting you as well…"_

_Kanda turned his head to look at him, but Allen continued to avert his eyes. "Why?"_

_Allen still didn't face him; instead he put his hands onto the mirror glass and leant his head forward until his forehead came into contact with its cold surface. "Because it'll be harder to kill someone I know and love…"_

_"Why does it have to end this way?"_

_"He… The Fourteenth said that a sacrifice is needed… that is the Heart."_

_"For what purpose?" Kanda asked._

_Allen finally turned around to face him and their eyes met. "The greater the wish the greater the sacrifice one must offer to grant it… I'm sorry."_

_"What do you people seek to do anyway?" Kanda asked, using a dryer and harsher tone than he had intended._

_Allen merely shrugged his shoulders. "We want to destroy the world and rebuilt it into a better one, I suppose… But this will all sound like complete rubbish to you, I think."_

_Kanda frowned again. "It does sound like complete nonsense to me, at least you're able to tell that much. I'm fairly impressed, Moyashi."_

_Allen sighed and went back to playing the piano, only to stop a few minutes later. "Say, Kanda…"_

_"What?" Kanda asked, growing tired of all these questions._

_"Have you ever wondered why you were cursed?"_

_Kanda tilted his head to the side. "I have, how so?"_

_Allen sighed and got to his feet again, walking across the room until he was standing in the doorway. "Nothing… I was merely thinking about the irony of us both being cursed with our fate."_

_Kanda's eyes narrowed. "You're not making any sense, Moyashi."_

_Allen laughed. "It's fine… because everything will end soon…"_

_Kanda looked away, seemingly disgusted. "Why are you always like that Moyashi?"_

_He blinked, surprised. "Always like what?"_

_A hiss. "Like you have already given up."_

_A smile. "But I already have."_

_A question. "Didn't you promise someone to keep walking or something?"_

_No answer. "Let's just get this over with… I'm getting tired of just standing here."_

_A smirk. "I wouldn't like to have it any other way."_

_An end. "Let's go, Kanda."_

_- o0o -_

"…Or at least it should have been the end," Malak said. "But unfortunately for me, it wasn't."

"What happened?" Allen asked, humouring him.

"Long story short, I went back in time," Malak said, shrugging mildly. "And I gave my hand to the other Allen, offering him a life without the hardships of Cross and the Order, but he turned me down and ran… He tried to resurrect Mana, got cursed, broke down… and then I came back to put the pieces back together…"

"Knowing I would not last long on my own, I fused my consciousness with his," he continued. "I hid away a part of his memories, sealing the knowledge which would break him deep within myself…"

"And then I lived on as Cross Marian's apprentice for a while, hating every minute of it…"

"Wait, wait, wait," Allen said, holding a hand up. "Let me get this straight… heeding the advice of another self, you chose to go back in time and become one with your past self while basically repeating what that other self of yours had already done once?"

Malak tilted his head to the side. "Close," he then said. "Close but no cigar. I strove to guide my other self down the path with the least obstacles in the way," he continued. "However, suffice to say that he didn't exactly do things as I wanted. Hence, perhaps guided by fate and perhaps not, he once again sent us spiralling down the Black Order route…"

"He was spotted with Timcanpy when he was on his way to track down the wayward Cross, and then the hunt was on," Malak shrugged again. "And due to Fate or a crappy sense of direction, guess where we ended up?"

"Romania?" Allen guessed.

"Correct," Malak responded with a sigh. "We ended up in f***ing Romania, and who did we encounter?"

He thought for a moment. "A blood-crazed Crowley?"

"I tried to stop him from going into the forest, but he just wouldn't listen," Malak muttered, folding his arms over his chest. "And the next thing I know, I have a pair of holes in my neck and a vampire to fight…"

_- o0o -_

_"Damn, you surprised me," the boy breathed, pressing a hand against the wound on his neck while staring at him with eerily glimmering silver-grey eyes. "A little more desperation on your part and you would've ripped my throat out…" the eyes narrowed slightly and the pupils shrunk noticeably as his entire body seemed to be shimmering for a moment before a white cloak appeared around him and a mask covered the upper part of his face. _

_"Now, I don't look all too kindly at someone who is pretty obviously trying to rip my throat out and suck me dry…" a black hand adorned with several inch long metal claws appeared in sight as the cloak moved slightly in the wind as the silver eyes gave the vampire Count a rather sinister look. "If you want to fight I don't mind but you could at least give me a fair warning before you try to rip my throat out…"_

_Count Crowley let out a chuckle before baring his teeth._

_"Why would I do that, brat?" he asked._

_"It's just common courtesy, Count," the boy replied, giving him a sarcastic bow before straightening up again. "Now tell me, do you want another go at killing me or…?" he paused briefly before looking towards a point to Crowley's left. "…Do we want to run away from torch-bearing mob first?"_

_- o0o -_

"My other self awoke disoriented and drained in more ways than one, just in time to observe the arrival of the Black Order pawns at the vampire's castle," Malak said. "They were looking for the White Phantom and they found him quite easily, bedridden and almost dead to the world… and that's the somewhat abridged version of how I once again ended up in the hands of the Order. Go figure."

Allen's eyebrows furrowed; why did it all sound so strangely familiar?

"Back then, the Order was very much like a prison for me," Malak said, poking into the dying embers with a stick. "Knowing what awaited me, I made no friends either and rejected those who attempted to get friendly with me. Suffocated by the Order's restraints, by their constant surveillance, I became more and more reckless, more and more desperate. I actually contemplated killing myself for a while, but then I had another idea…"

"What did you do?" Allen found himself asking, half-dreading the answer. This couldn't be good.

"In the middle of a mission, while I was engaged in a fight a bit off from the others, I managed to reawaken my Noah abilities for long enough to send a message," Malak said. "The akuma are the Earl's hands and feet, and since I knew that I utilised the link he shares with them in order to make contact…"

"A while later, on another mission, members of the Noah Family were waiting for me," he continued. "I allowed myself to get captured, and was brought before the Earl… and from there on my descent into darkness began. I won't go into much detail on that, but before I knew it, I was standing alone on top of it all, staring at the world down below where it lay in ruins…"

He paused and turned his head to the side, staring into nothingness for a few seconds as the darkness had again grown thicker around them. "Well," he then said with a yawn and a shrug as he got to his feet. "I do believe there is a saying that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions… and I suppose it's true, at least based on my own trial and error… But enough about that; we need to move forward."

Allen remained where he sat. "It's already getting dark," he said. "Shouldn't we wait until morning comes?"

Malak turned around, holding a walking stick one of his hands and his mask in the other. "In the company of fugitives and traitors…it is sometimes far more sensible to move in the night-time," he said, putting the mask back onto his face. "Besides, if we linger here for much longer, that creep might appear…"

"That creep?"

"Yes, that creep…" Malak's amber eyes shone coldly in the darkness, but his tone of voice betrayed his feelings of loathing. "Apocryphos."

_- o0o -_


	4. Infiltration

…

_- _o0o -

**Infiltration**

_- _o0o -

"Where are we going?" Allen asked, slightly out of breath as they continued making their way up another mountain ridge.

Malak didn't answer, but at least he had the decency to pause in his stride, turning around and leaning onto his staff for support as he seemingly gazed upon the abandoned city where it lay in the distance, showered in the first few rays of sunlight. With some level of difficulty, Allen caught up to him and surveyed the same scenery, silently wondering whether the scenery he saw was any different from the one Malak gazed so intently upon. "When you watch the sun rise, what do you think about?" the latter asked somewhat suddenly, leaning more heavily onto his staff.

Allen frowned slightly at the somewhat odd question. "What do people normally think about when they watch the sun rise?" he asked. "I'd probably be far too busy thinking about what I was going to eat for breakfast to concern myself much with the sun…"

Malak laughed in response. "That's a wonderful idea," he said. "Let's have it right now."

Allen's frown deepened and he turned to the masked weirdo, kicking up an eyebrow. "Right now?"

Malak gave him a somewhat feral grin before turning around, adjusting his grip on his staff, holding it like a bat of some sort. Seeing this, Allen's eyebrow climbed even higher. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again, his eyes darting off as he perceived something approaching. The staff swung through the air, striking down with deadly force. The next thing he knew, Malak had clubbed an eagle – a freaking eagle – right out of the air. The bird fell to the ground next to him in a rain of feathers, and he gave Malak a look of utter disbelief.

"You just clubbed a freaking eagle!" he found himself spitting out on reflex. "What the Hell's wrong with you?"

To make matters worse, the other looked a bit too satisfied with himself, standing there with his staff resting on his shoulder.

"Not suiting your tastes, eh?" Malak then asked, tilting his head slightly to the side, his grin widening. "Should I hunt down something bigger?"

Allen silently contemplated his decision to team up with this madman. _Even the Earl made more sense than this…_

They sat on a mountain slope, having their breakfast while looking out at the scenery.

"So," Allen eventually asked, unable to retain his silence for much longer. "Where do we go from here?"

Malak did not respond in favour of putting the finishing touches on his new, feather-equipped hairdo. Having done that, a look of deep contemplation crossed his face. "Actually…" he started where he sat perched on a small landing. "There is one place I seriously should pay a visit to while I'm in the area…"

Allen looked up; he had a bad feeling about this, but he decided to humour him by asking about it anyway. "Which place?"

Malak continued eyeing the scenery with a thoughtful look, even as he answered the question. "The Vatican."

Allen nearly choked.

_- _o0o -

"Why are we infiltrating the Vatican?" Allen hissed under his breath. "I thought we were supposed to hide from them?"

Malak continued grinning, putting a finger to his lips. His hair was still adorned with numerous eagle feathers, and the staff was on the floor next to them where they crouched in the shadow of a pillar, out of sight from the guards. "Explaining later," he then mouthed back to him, reaching for the staff.

Allen, knowing what awaited, screwed his eyes shut, remaining motionless. Only when his ears had picked up the telltale sound of something heavy being swung through the air, soon followed by two thumps and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor in quick succession, did he peek out from his hiding place. His eyes immediately zeroed in on Malak as he stood there with a couple of knocked-out guards at his feet, giving the staff another experimental swing. "You could kill a boar with that thing," Allen muttered, walking up to him and surveying the damage which had been done.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," Malak responded, putting the lower end of the staff back onto the floor. "Now let's go."

"Go where?" Allen immediately questioned.

"To the _Archivum Secretum Vaticanum__,_ where else?" Malak responded, as though their next destination had been completely obvious. At Allen's seeming lack of comprehension, he decided to elaborate a bit. "The Secret Archives, dumbass. Why else would anyone bother infiltrating this place in the first place?"

"I don't know…" Allen said, his voice dripping of sarcasm as he ventured a guess. "To assassinate the Pope or something?"

Malak snapped his fingers. "That's actually a quite good idea, but we'll do the Secret Archives first and then see how things go from there…"

For some reason, Allen had this sudden urge to slap him in the face, but he did not venture into it, seeing that his own body had only just started recovering from the ordeal of his partial awakening. His Innocence was by no means back in a fully working condition, but Allen somehow doubted it would ever be, seeing that his genes and his Innocence apparently could not get along properly and as such were fighting, trying to destroy each other. Still, seeing that he had somehow managed to regain some semblance of balance, the fever which had been raging through him had lowered drastically. Somewhat grudgingly, Allen did care to admit that it was at least partially due to Malak's influence, even though the thought of how someone as obviously insane as Malak would be able to calm him and bring him back into balance was beyond him.

_- _o0o -

"Rule number one of fighting a war at a numeral disadvantage," Malak said, striking a match. "Sabotage evens things out."

"And just what the Hell does burning down a library have to do with making things even or gaining an advantage?" Allen spat out, running his eyes over the countless number of shelves as they seemingly stretched for miles and miles for no end.

"You'll see," Malak said, speaking with confidence before suddenly blowing at the alit match to extinguish the flame. "But before that, we'll obviously raid it; we would be very stupid not to use this kind of opportunity."

Allen gave him a funny look before turning his eyes back to the shelves, silently wondering what secrets could possibly be hidden within the aged tomes neatly stashed on them. Then he turned back to Malak, only to find that the guy had already wandered off deeper into the library, running his fingers across the spines of numerous books as he went along, seemingly in a deep state of concentration. Somewhat hesitantly, Allen decided to follow. "It should be in here somewhere…" he heard Malak mutter, watching him frown a bit as he went on to another shelf, repeating the same process with his fingers. "I know it was in here somewhere…"

Allen turned, getting the impression that there was someone watching him. There was a shadow at the end of the hall, a humanoid shape which certainly had not been there a couple of moments before. Instinctively, he took a step backwards. In the next moment, Malak was in front of him, ready and armed with his staff in one hand and the other supporting the thick tome he had propped against his chest. "My, what an unpleasant surprise," Malak said, firing off a somewhat forced grin in direction of the newcomer, who slowly advanced on them with precise and calm steps. "Fancy seeing you here, Apocreep."

Malak shifted slightly in his position, seemingly making himself a shield between Allen and the third person, who as he approached turned out to be a cardinal holding a small lantern. "Allen," Malak said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "When I give you the signal, you execute Plan B. Don't pay any attention to me, just go along with it straight away, okay?"

"There you are, Allen," the Cardinal said, pushing his glasses a bit further up. "I had a feeling you would come here…"

"Don't listen to him," Malak said, eerily focused. "Remember the plan."

Allen looked back at Malak, taking note of the grim expression which adorned his features, and even though he was wearing a mask he could clearly imagine the narrowed amber eyes which would go with those thin lips. _Remember the plan…_

Malak adjusted his grip on the book on his arm all while he gripped the staff more tightly. "One."

He took a deep breath before continuing. "Two."

Allen, catching the hint, immediately turned heel, taking off in a sprint in the opposite direction, away from them both just as Malak reached a count of three.

"I will not let you escape," the Cardinal said, putting out his hand.

"Now!" Malak shouted, overlapping the other, brandishing his staff. "Duck!"

Immediately, Allen dove to the floor, just as a round of flames went over his head, directed at some scraps of papers filled with patterns which had closed in on him. What the Hell…?

The paper scraps were almost immediately incinerated, dispelling some kind of force field; he could feel the change in the atmosphere, as the air suddenly seemed lighter. It was only temporary though, as the air was soon filled with crackling magic, and as Allen turned, he confirmed that Malak was the source of it.

"A Noah, entering this Holy Place so casually?" the Cardinal said, frowning in clear disapproval. "Have you no shame?"

"Have you?" Malak shot back, firing off another spell in his direction.

It was repelled, seemingly without much effort.

"I presume you are one of the new ones," the man said, advancing another step. "Unfortunately, I have made the acquaintance of some of the older ones… So, might I ask who stands in my way so that I may pray for your damned soul when I put your sinful self out of existence?"

Malak smirked. "Funny. I was just about to say something similar just for the heck of it, but I already know who you are and what you are, so I'll just tell you to bugger off instead."

"Allen," he then said without turning. "Keep going and for goodness sake, do not look back. Things are going to get ugly."

_- _o0o -

"I ask again," the Apocryphos said, having shed his Cardinal disguise. "Which sinful beast of Noah stands before me?"

"I am whoever I choose to be," Malak responded, weaving another spell. "And not even a thing like you will be able to change that. I am my own master, I make my own fate, and the rest of you can just go screw yourselves, seriously."

He let the old tome fall to the floor to be able to brandish his staff more freely.

"Your filthy magic can do no harm to me!" Apocryphos shouted, lashing out to attack him, only to be blocked by the staff. "You will perish!"

"I know," Malak responded with a smile. "This isn't a self-sacrificial gamble for nothing, after all."

A blinding light surrounded them.

_- _o0o -

_This is enough, right?_

_- _o0o -

The staff fell to the floor with a clatter which echoed in the silence that soon followed.

_- _o0o -

_This is enough… right?_

_- _o0o -

Crimson liquid poured out of fresh wounds, forming a growing pool down on the stone floor.

_- _o0o -

_No… it's nowhere near enough…_

_But it'll simply have to do…_

_It was fun while it lasted…_

_- _o0o -

Amber eyes fluttered close for a moment. Then they shot back open, widening in pain.

_- _o0o -

"To still be able to move in your state, I am quite impressed…"

Allen gritted his teeth as the Apocreep leaned closer to him where he had collapsed in a sitting position against a wall.

"Your spiritual power astonishes me…"

He had been caught; caught like a fly in a flytrap. No, even worse, he had been betrayed by the very parasite which had been living in his body – his Innocence; it had gone completely haywire on him.

"There is no other being which is as unevenly and deeply connected with the Innocence as you are, Allen…" Apocryphos said, cupping his cheeks all while Allen resisted the urge to spit at him. "You've grown up to become a beautiful exorcist."

Allen squirmed where he sat; there was no escape, yet he knew he had to find one and that he needed to find one quickly. Apocryphos, interpreting his squirming as fear, leaned in even closer. "You do not need to be afraid," he said. "You're just becoming one with me."

_Becoming one with you? Afraid?_

Anger welled up inside of him at the thought of something so preposterous. He lashed out, delivering a kick into the abdomen of that abomination, buying himself enough time to get back to his feet and to block the attack which followed, even with his still uncooperative Innocence. He looked up, eyes steely and determined, unwavering. "I refuse."

Laughter. "You do not have the right to refuse, you fool."

"He has every right to refuse," a third person cut in, and a staff fell down heavily onto Apocryphos' back, making him turn around to face the bloody figure of an unmasked and serenely smiling Malak. "And so do I."

Apocryphos, appearing mildly surprised by the other's appearance and seemingly continued state of livelihood, said nothing.

Landing on the floor in-between Allen and their opponent, Malak straightened up, wiping some of the blood away from his face.

"That…" he said, nodding in Apocryphos' general direction. "... is an Innocence which is capable of moving independently, without an accommodator. Its purpose in this world is to protect the Heart…"

"I kind of figured," Allen responded, walking up to him from behind. "I thought you were dead."

"Considering the nature of my existence, death a bit more negotiable, fortunately enough," Malak said, shifting his staff over to one hand so that the other was free for Allen to take. "Come on, we're leaving."

"I won't let you get away!" Apocryphos hissed, launching itself at them.

"Keep telling yourself that," Malak responded, blocking the strike. "We're leaving this place anyhow, whether you like it or not…"

He paused before speaking up again, directing himself to Allen. "Summon the Ark. I'll hold him off."

Allen closed his eyes, trying to focus his senses; it was difficult with all the thoughts and images running through his mind, but he still managed. A gate shimmered into existence behind them, and Malak sent one last wave of magic Apocryphos' way before allowing himself to be pulled towards it. They dove in, one pulling the other, and immediately after they had gone through Malak spoke up. "Terminate the connection."

He had already done it.

_- _o0o -

Seemingly out of harm's way, both of them collapsed in a heap on the pavement of the city which lay within the Ark. When he had recovered enough to speak, Allen said something he had been itching to say for quite some time. "Just for the record, we're not doing this again."

Malak laughed. "Just for the record, we don't have to," he said, sitting up, hissing in pain as he did so. "Since we got what we came for…"

Allen sat up as well, surveying the bloody appearance of his companion. "Why aren't you dead?"

Breathing a sigh, Malak moved over a bit and wincing terribly while doing it, leaning his back against Allen's for support. "It's complicated," he said, tilting his head back to rest against Allen's.

"Most things are," Allen responded, somewhat grudgingly accepting his new role as a makeshift pillow.

"You know…" Malak then said, closing his eyes. "Technically speaking, I have already died several times over, but for some reason, I feel strangely alive right now… even though I probably look like death warmed over…"

"You do," Allen responded, without turning and looking. "And I'm still in the dark as to why you are not dead."

Malak took a shuddering breath, his eyes still closed. "I'm tired," he whispered with another sigh, sagging against him. "Let me rest for a bit."

Allen silently wondered whether or not he would wake up at all.

_- _o0o -


	5. Reaching a Conclusion

_The fate of this fic has been decided. This fic will end here, and there'll be a sequel of some sort available (Black Joker, Red Joker) by the time I repost this. Cheers.  
_

_- _o0o -

**Reaching a Conclusion**

_- _o0o -

Back and forth, back and forth, pacing.

Pacing, waiting for seconds, minutes and hours to come and go.

If his perception of time had not become completely screwed up, three days had passed since their quite random infiltration of and consecutive escape from the Vatican with a new foe hot at their heels. Time itself appeared to pass more slowly within the Ark, and after a while it became really difficult to tell how much or how little time had passed since the aforementioned events had taken place. There were no days or nights within it, not at the moment at least, and in their place was a kind of eternal twilight, although there was no sun shining in the artificial sky.

After he had once again grown tired of pacing, Allen headed back to the area he had come to consider his general base of operations: the secret room of the Ark. Upon entering, he was able to confirm that his otherworldly counterpart still had not moved from the sofa onto which Allen had placed him after he had collapsed. Three days and not even a twitch as far as Allen could tell; had he not felt the ghostly whisper of the other's breathing against his bare skin then he would have felt the need to check to see whether or not rigor mortis had begun to set in.

Having little else to do but wait until the other showed at least some signs of coming to, Allen had taken to exploring the Ark, but eventually he grew tired of that, returning to the hidden room every now and then to check on the condition of his companion. Even so, while waiting, Allen could very much tell that he would have to take action within the near future; they were running low on rations, and even though they were likely wanted and hunted by both the Order and the Earl, Allen wanted to reconnect with the real world, to find out what had taken place in his absence.

He sighed before yawning and stretching, trying to think about what to do next. Before he was able to think about anything on the other hand, a sudden sound alerted him and he looked up just in time to see as one of Malak's fingers gave a noticeable twitch. Amber eyes fluttered open, staring up at a white ceiling. "About that question from earlier…" the other said, his voice barely rising above a dry whisper.

"What about it?" Allen asked, unbelievably patient despite having waited since forever to finish their conversation.

"I told you… didn't I?" Malak said after a brief pause, speaking breathlessly, as though the oxygen in his lungs wasn't enough to sustain him through an entire sentence. "That Apocryphos' purpose… is to protect the Heart…"

"You did," Allen affirmed, vaguely recalling having heard something of the sort. "What about it?" he asked, silently wondering whether or not the other's seeming shortness of breath was a direct result of the injury the other had suffered at the hand of that creep they'd been attacked by.

Malak paused again, slowly bringing one of his hands up to rest on his chest, clutching the fabric of his shirt, right above his heart. "As you already know… I am not from around here… but even so, the Heart I have… is just as real… as the one which exists… in this world… Apocryphos' purpose… is to protect the Heart…not to destroy it… and for whatever reason…the Heart which dwells within me… still wants… to keep me alive…"

Allen's eyes widened slightly, but he remained silent, waiting for the other to continue.

"I knew something he didn't… and I… took advantage of it," Malak said, continuing to pause every other word to regain his breath. "Taking me for a Noah… he obviously tried to kill me… but he wasn't thorough enough… since he wanted… to go after you… as soon as possible… If he had tried absorbing me… the situation would have… turned out quite differently…"

"Absorbing?" Allen repeated, sickened. He recalled the situation he had been in – trapped – and he realised just how close he had been to becoming absorbed; it had been too close, way too close.

"I lied earlier," Malak continued. "Your master… wasn't assassinated; he was absorbed."

Silence.

Allen found himself idly studying the white ceiling. "Yeah, I kind of figured," he then said, his face remaining impassive. No really, he hadn't, but he still supposed it was an end which befitted his old master in a way, seeing that the man in question was not really one who would die by conventional means. "So," he asked after a while, switching the subject. "Who taught you magic?"

The other laughed dryly in response. "Take a guess," he then said, sitting up with some effort.

Allen ventured a guess that it had been either the Earl or Cross, receiving a mild shrug in return. "Technically speaking," the other said, tilting his head slightly to the side. "I taught myself… by means of observation. The Earl and Cross in my world were both magicians… but so was the Fourteenth, and although… I am by no means skilled at it… I figured it would work to my benefit… to know at least the basics… of wielding it."

Allen stared thoughtfully at him for a while, contemplating what had been said. "Teach me," he then said, and the other looked up, staring at him with something akin to surprise. Then Malak shrugged, winced and finally smiled. "Sure, why not? You need every skill you can get… if you're going to make it."

Getting up with much effort, the amber-eyed teen rose to his feet, swaying a bit unsteadily before steadying himself and straightening himself up. "By the way," he said, turning his head slightly to look at him out of the corner of his eye. "Malak isn't working too well with me for the moment, so I need a new name."

Allen's eyebrow gave a noticeable twitch. "Why?"

The other shrugged mildly once more, having reclaimed the staff Allen had leaned against one of the walls earlier, leaning heavily onto it while giving him a thoughtful look. "Why not?"

Allen thought about it for a moment before shrugging it off. "Suit yourself."

He was rewarded with a smile. "Good," the other said. "From now on, call me Robin."

Allen knew better than to argue, though he did idly take note of that the other seemed to breathe easier then, as though the mere shedding of a name also included shedding all the injuries and burdens which had come with it. Switching names, identities, lives… it sounded strangely familiar, but why?

Silver-grey eyes eyed the other in silence, thoughtfully.

_- _o0o -

"Truthfully, switching names has become somewhat of a habit of mine," the newly named Robin noted once they had relocated to a beach somewhere. "Though if anything, I should probably be blaming the Fourteenth for it…"

"How so?" Allen responded without missing a beat, watching as the other poked his staff into the sand.

Robin shrugged mildly before gripping his staff more tightly, using it to write in the sand. "To my knowledge, he was an Apprentice to the title of Bookman," he then said, writing _Neah Walker_ in the sand. "The same role this world's Lavi now inhabits."

Allen kicked an eyebrow up in question, but retained his silence, waiting for the other to continue.

"I'm not entirely sure about your Lavi, but the one in my world was conflicted," Robin then said, drawing a few lines in the sand all while he continued speaking. "As a human, it's only natural to want to stick your nose into things; to get involved and all, yet the philosophy that Bookman teaches is one of strict non-involvement. Bookmen are not meant to get emotionally invested in what they are supposed to record; the Fourteenth failed spectacularly in that aspect and got himself killed for his meddling and truthfully, I believe the current apprentice isn't that far away from it either…"

He paused, writing a list of other names in the sand. "To switch names is a way to switch identities," he then said, sounding rather thoughtful. "With taking on a new name and discarding another, you can take on new view and new traits all while discarding you old ones, along with any loyalties you may have developed along with it… It comes in handy."

Allen gave him a somewhat impassive look. "Is that what you're doing?" he then questioned. "Discarding your former loyalties and traits for new ones?"

Robin shook his head in response. "Though I could technically do that, I normally switch for other reasons," he then said, making the final strokes in the sand. "To me, it's a way to keep track of time… I guess. And to prevent myself from getting bored, but that one's secondary to my knowledge…"

"How?" Allen questioned, seeking insight into the workings of the other's mind.

Amber eyes looked at him, glimmering with something akin to amusement. "The part about keeping track of time or the one about preventing boredom?"

"Both," Allen shot back without missing a beat, receiving a mild shrug in return.

"Simply put, I switch names each and every time I feel that I am close enough to death to feel it breathing down my neck," Robin then explained, taking a seat on higher ground. "I started out as Red, nearly died, emerged as Allen, nearly died, emerged as Neah, nearly died, emerged as Mana, nearly died, emerged as Malak… and lived, at least up until the Apocreep turned up. And now, I'm Robin, but there's really no telling how long I'll remain as such…"

"Is that so?" Allen responded, rising to his feet just before the raised tide came rolling in, erasing the lines the other had drawn up until that point. A single wave, capable of erasing everything...

The water continued to come flooding into the bay, but he remained where he was, even as the water rose to cover him up to his ankles. He was barefoot anyhow, so the prospect of him getting his feet wet had never been much of an issue. For a while, he just stood there as the water gradually withdrew once more, standing there with his eyes closed, hearing the ever-present call of seagulls in the distance, echoing over the waters. It was a strange feeling – so alarmingly real, yet strangely otherworldly at the same time. It was foreign, yet strangely familiar at the same time, as though he had visited such a place at some point in his life or even just in a dream. The salty breeze blew past him, going far beyond him, and he opened his eyes, only then really taken note of that Robin was standing right next to him with his staff in hand, looking out at the same scenery Allen had found himself admiring just minutes before.

"I have one more story to tell," the other announced, his eyes still trained on something in the distance. "Will you hear it?"

_- _o0o -

Out in the bay, a seagull swooped down into the water, emerging from it moments later with a fresh catch in its beak. Allen took note of it with idle interest before refocusing his attention on the new lines that had been drawn into the sand to replace some of the old ones. For the longest time, his companion remained silent, drawing instead of speaking, but eventually, he opened his mouth. "In this world – in any world, I'd say – there are certain rules… rules which are to be followed…" Robin began, sounding thoughtful.

"The existence you call God created the rules, hence that person is also the one who knows all the loopholes," he soon continued, drawing new lines in the sand to illustrate what he was saying. "One of these loopholes are as follows…"

He paused briefly, drawing a few new lines in the sand. "If you have the power to do something, you have also been bestowed with the reverse power – the power to undo that something," he then said, writing down the word 'Power' in the sand right in the centre of a whole array of lines. "Hence, somewhat crudely explained, creators and destroyers are essentially two sides of the same coin…" he went on, writing a few key words down, right next to the word. He circled them, drawing a couple of arrows between them. "Creation is needed for destruction," he then said. "And destruction is needed for creation… and you, as the Destroyer of Time, are also slotted as the re-creator of Time… in a manner of speaking."

Allen looked up at him shortly before looking down again, staring at the drawings in silence.

"The Earl's objective is to bring everything back to the beginning, meaning that he intends to break this world and use the pieces of it to create another," the other continued, shrugging mildly. "And as the Destroyer of Time and as the New Fourteenth, your objective is – has been, at least – to kill the Millennium Earl…"

Allen looked up again, opening his mouth to protest, but the other continued speaking before he was able to. "The Earl is your enemy, so it's only natural for you to want to cut him down," Robin said, tilting his head to the side. "But… what about the others?"

He drew rough caricatures of the faces of the members of the Noah clan in the sand. Then he looked up again, staring Allen straight in the eye. "Listen to me, and listen to me well…" he began, his voice nearly devoid of all and any emotion. "If there is a creator, there must also be a destroyer."

Allen said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

"The Earl is the Creator of Akuma," Robin moved on to state. "And you – as an exorcist – are a Destroyer of Akuma."

He paused momentarily before continuing once more. "Yet, at the same time," he went on. "The Earl is the Earl of the Millennium – of Time – all while you are the one prophesised to be the Destroyer of Time…"

He paused again, smiling. "Now," he said, drawing another line in the sand. "Let's pretend you did the same thing I did the first few times around and killed the Earl – what happens?"

Allen shrugged mildly in response.

"Well, it should be bloody damn obvious, shouldn't it?" Robin said, drawing an X over the Earl's face. "The world, regardless of who created it, strives to remain in balance… and what happens when the Earl is killed?" he went on, giving Allen a look.

"It crumbles," the aforementioned responded, looking up to meet the amber eyes he had already known to be resting on him.

"And what happens next?" Robin shot back, drawing a question mark in the sand to emphasise his question.

"The world… strives to regain its balance?" Allen guessed, looking back at the drawings.

"How?" the other persisted, neither affirming nor rejecting his answer.

Allen looked up again, meeting an eerily focused pair of eyes. "…Someone must take the Earl's place?"

The other smiled, tilting his head to the side, looking mildly satisfied with his progress. "Who?" Robin persisted.

Allen thought about it for a moment before responding. "…The Destroyer of Time?"

"Yes," the other affirmed, crossing out the question mark. "Now… what happens to the balance?" he went on.

Allen watched him in silence for a few moments before responding. "It… crumbles?" he responded somewhat hesitantly, looking at him for some sort of confirmation.

"Yes," Robin confirmed, eyeing him with keen interest. "And how will it be restored?"

Allen stared back in silence for several minutes, seeing the answer quite obvious where it was reflected in the other's eyes. It was his own reflection, looking quite different from how he remembered it.

"Another Destroyer… must appear," he then said, feeling his heart sink like a stone as the implications hit him.

Robin's smile broadened, but his eyes held no visible amusement as far as Allen could see. "Yes."

Allen sagged noticeably in his posture. "Then… what do we do now?"

The other just shrugged mildly in response, leaning heavily against his staff. "That's for you to decide," he then said, staring thoughtfully into the distance. "Though I can certainly provide you with a tip or two…"

Allen said nothing, giving the other a tired look. "Say it," he then said. "Get over with; what must I do?"

Amber eyes withdrew their gaze from the distance, giving him a contemplating look, seemingly assessing him before deciding he was ready to hear the other's statement. "Okay then," Robin said, his voice surprisingly light, bordering on cheerful. "Let's face it: Whether you like it or not, you'll need allies if you wish to take on both the Order and the Earl. In the end, I tried to do everything by myself, and look where I ended up."

He made a vague gesture.

Allen remained unimpressed by the other's reasoning. "Thanks to you, I am a traitor to both sides," he returned, shooting the other a slightly heated glance. "What kind of people do I still have left to ally myself with?"

His ire did not pass his companion by unnoticed, earning a smile in return as Robin turned his back to him and started heading towards a nearby peak, using the staff as a support while walking. "Allen," he said, turning his head slightly so that he could look at him through the corner of his eye. "As you should already be aware, this body of mine won't last forever. Sooner or later, I'll disappear from this world, and when I do, I want to make sure you're not alone in all of this like I was…"

Robin paused briefly, his smile conveying something akin to reassurance as he turned around fully to face him. "Believe it or not, but your allies are still out there," he said knowingly. "Still… they won't just turn up at your doorstep just like that; they need to know where you stand before they can consider joining you…"

He paused once more. "Trust me," he then said. "Loyalty needs to be earned, and the same thing applies to trust; they go both ways and you can't have one without the other… so trust me, and let me help you to the extent that I can, because while I can only do so much, I won't betray you. The rest is up to you – and your present and future allies – to take care of."

He held out his hand towards him, and for the longest time, Allen just found himself staring at it, his mind full of conflicting emotions. Then, he finally reached out to take it. "Yes."

_- _o0o -


End file.
